> but the US does seem to have done an amazing, Stalingrad-class job of uniting civilians in support of a reviled dictator to fight against foreign invasion. US military victory may not be in doubt but neither is the hatred toward America the US has created in the Iraqi people. Stalin was not hated in Soviet Russia. The Ukraine, that's another story. But he was idolized in Russia. the intelligentsia hated him, but they were not a  large social group. And the fact is that, apart from the catastrophic crime of collectivization and the random acts of terror that occasionally took a worker or kolkoznik to the Gulag for 25 years (most of that stuff was aimed at the party any the intelligents, though), Stalinism vastly improved the lot of the peoples of the Soviet Union. They didn't have a reason to hate the old tyrant. they didn't have much freedom, but most people don't use it, so they don't miss it most of the time. jks <hr size=1>Do y ou Yahoo!? <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/platinum/evt=8162/*http://platinum.yahoo.com/splash.html">Yahoo! Platinum</a> - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/platinum/evt=8162/*http://platinum.yahoo.com/splash.html">live on your desktop</a>!